The buzz around Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra, one of Malayalam cinema’s most ambitious recent releases, has brought a new name to the fore: Reble, a rapper-singer from Shillong. You can hear her powerful voice when she spits bars in the film’s pulsing title track, Thani Lokah Murakkaari, composed by Jakes Bejoy.

For Reble, born Daiaphi Lamare, it was her first film score, a collaboration that placed her before new audiences across the country. But the road to this moment began much earlier, in the hills of Meghalaya, where music is a second language.

“In Shillong, music is everywhere,” she says. “I was maybe five or six when I started noticing sound. Rock, hip-hop, indie. It was always in the air. By 10, I was scribbling rhymes, rapping, trying to find a place for myself. I didn’t have much or didn’t really fit in. Music became my outlet.”